Do you receive EET's T&M newsletter? If not, you should. There's a section called T&M archive and a link to this article will appear in either the Aug 21 or Aug 28 newsletter. I forget. So, you might get more comments.

"Maybe we should organise a seance and ask bil and dav's spirits what they think of all this."

Bill and Dave probavly would want their names on the Keysight door in Santa Rosa rather than the HP door in Palo Alto.

Never thought I'd get another comment on this old blog Martin, thanks. It's very sad watching the ups and downs of what was such a great company. Maybe we should organise a seance and ask bil and dav's spirits what they think of all this. Anyone got a ouija board?

The decision on HP vs. Agilent was pretty simple. It was determined that it would be much easier to retrain the relatively small number of engineers who used test equipment, rather than the great masses of people who used HP printers and/or computers. I'm a 30+ year employee of HP/Agilent and still love my job.

Most of my AF & RF test equipment is RCA in-house (we had a small division that made test equipment for the various divisions, including TV & appliance field service) & Heathkit, handed down to me by my Uncle Chazz, with my Heath vacuum tube tester -- still working! -- a hand-me-down from *his* father!

You're a lucky man indeed (and smart, obviously!) I have always been astounded by the range of equipment that HP produces. Tektronix, for example, have always made superb scopes, but HP made superb -everything-. As you've pointed out, you could equip an entire lab with HP equipment and there would be very few requirements you could not fill with their gear. Many thanks for the comment.

Well everyone,
I'm a young fella who works on his own. I still have my HP 41CX as well as my TI-58C. Still use them. My bench is almost entirely HP except for the scope. I have a 1722A I want to restore, as well as an 3586B (received with destroyed regulator card - what battery did it use?). I treasure each piece, from a 6236A I've had forever to the 34401A I also bought new. The latest prize is a 4195A (with test set, used of course) I'm learning to use fully. What people don't see from the front panels are the entire set of functions available. Even the old 428B DC clamp current meter is an amazing piece of equipment. It's tube based and works more than "fine". This older gear is still fantastic. Too bad most of it hits the scrap or re-sellers, instead of the people who actually need it. Even the "working" equipment" I've bought was no-op, from larger companies that re-sell test gear through Eeek! -bay.
I love restoring HP equipment, and the work is always well worth the effort.
As for which way the trademarks went ... I agree. Computers and printers need that trusted name I guess. The Agilent name is creating those same trusted followers that HP forged. I hope the computer guys don't mess it up!

I had to replace the NiCds on my 45 before it finally gave up the ghost, they are standard AA NiCds but you have to do a bit of careful work opening up the plastic housing to replace them, and solder wires onto the new cells if you can't get tagged ones.

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